AN Israeli group has purchased the former Jupiter Media Metrix building for a record-setting conversion price of $42 million. The group now intends to convert the 11-story building at 21 Astor Place to a super-luxury condominium.

The approximately 100,000-square-foot building, located at the crossroads of the East and West Villages and NoHo, has been the target for a long line of converters who have somehow failed to get various boutique hotel, loft or residence projects off the planning boards.

Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall Fund took the building over a few years ago and spent millions on fixing infrastructure, eventually leasing it to then-high-flying Internet star, Jupiter Media Metrix.

But when Ron Solarz of Eastern Consolidated saw Jupiter heading for a hard landing in smaller offices, he called up Whitehall with a preemptive bid. “When they had a tenant paying a big number, there was no incentive to sell,” said Solarz.

Co-brokers Eric Anton and Ioav Oelsner worked with Solarz to finalize the deal for the buyers, who have completed several luxury projects. What may be the highest-grossing Starbucks in the country will remain as a tenant there, along with a Kinko’s business center.

“The price was high, there was no wiggle room and they had to perform everything fast,” said Solarz. “The whole deal took two months.”

Anton noted, “Because it is a seller’s market today, most buyers need to jump through hoops to get a deal done. This time the hoops were flaming.”

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It wasn’t so long ago, in the height of the tech craze, that building owners thought they would find financial nirvana by transforming old properties and building new ones as telecom hotels.

These “hotels” would be the momentary resting places for the computer servers that ran every business and hosted every Web site.

Two years ago, there appeared to be a never-ending need for well-air-conditioned, high-powered, high-ceilinged buildings in every corner of the universe. Now the Manhattan landscape is littered with build-to-suit sites that never even got out of the ground, and with companies like then-named TrizecHahn Corp., of Toronto, which lost about $63 million on three U.S. tech center development projects.

The Meat Market’s former Nabisco factory was purchased by the Texans at Highgate Holdings to become a traditional hotel, but was resold to Level 3 to be used for Web hosting services. On Level 3’s behalf, Cushman & Wakefield is pitching 280,000 square feet of 85 Tenth Ave.’s 560,000 square feet to house other people’s data centers and backup facilities, and has already leased one 56,000-square-foot floor to Lehman Bros.

But another Highgate building at 636 Eleventh Ave., which was actually leased to Global Crossing before that company’s fall, is now on the market and expected to sell for north of $50 million. Highgate picked up the 576,000-square-footer for about $40 million and has it listed on the CoStar Group database with an asking price of $65 million.

Bidders culled down to make final “hard money” bids on Sept. 30 include Young Woo with the Angelo Gordon Company; Insignia Financial; and David Bistricer, a quiet, outer-borough residential converter.

Newmark’s James D. Kuhn and David Noonan are running the transaction on behalf of Archon, a division of Goldman Sachs, but could not be reached for comment.

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The sound company hoping to take home a Best Commercial Emmy for Visa’s Broadway Tribute ad is leaving Times Square for SoHo.

Face The Music is putting a new facade on its own image, more than doubling the size of its current spread by leasing 8,600 square feet at 107 Grand St., at the corner of Mercer Street.

The sound effects and musical creators for Nike and Mercedes Benz will take over the six years remaining on Club Monaco’s seventh-floor lease. Christopher Owles of Sinvin brought the soundmeisters to the space, where Robert Cohen of Robert K. Futterman & Associates was asking $38 a foot.

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Finally: Last week’s old file photo of the Bloomberg lease celebration did not reflect that Laura Pomerantz has since moved from Newmark to PBS Realty Advisors.